We all know that internet services are expensive locally but how much does it really cost to get a good internet package? What sort of damage are you looking at financially?

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Well, In the interest of providing everyone with an overview of how much the internet costs in Zimbabwe we have listed below the latest prices for most of the local internet services from different ISPs, IAPs and the 3 Mobile Network Operators.

These are mostly Wimax packages with most of the fibre packages and the VSAT offerings that form the minority of connections not reflected here.

All the tariffs listed below rightly reflect the huge cost of local internet services, even though they are significantly lower than what we used to fork out some years ago.

The average amount you need to pay for a decent connection is in the region of $25 per month (check on TelOne ADSL, Africom and mobile network operator broadband). This is assuming that you won’t be out to use all data for torrents of course.

We can only hope that these prices are going to be revised downwards again, something that positively influences internet penetration.

What are your own thoughts on the cost of internet in Zimbabwe? What do you think we should be paying for these services as a fair price?

30 Comments

Great read. What would be interesting though would be a comparison with other countries. For example, for the equivalent of $ 50, one gets close to 10gb in Nigeria and this is super-fast no-nonsense broadband. Is it because we have a small market that our rates are so expensive? It wouldn’t be such an issue if the services were reliable, but we are paying too much for very shoddy services. Shouldn’t POTRAZ step in and do something?

We are being extorted, period. The prices for the crappy service they provide is astronomical. Whe ZOL says up to 1MB, you wonder when and how it actually gets to that mythical 1MB. It’s almost, always on 256k. Econet has no regard for their customers especially considering the price to quality ratio..its 10:1, I think we simply need more players in the industry and maybe this might force the prices to go down. I once asked someone who works at one ISP, why thier charges are so ridiculous, and they simply said…”if you own the backbone of the internet, you charge what ever you like”

I assumed such comparisons are supposed to be categorized into wireless providers and wired providers. The cost of a wireless last mile is always more expensive and that is a fact. TelOne’s copper is cheaper be it CAPEX or OPEX terms.

Internet rates in Zimbabwe are high its true, but the show of ignorance gets me wondering what you use the internet for???? Before you compare the rates in Zim and elsewhere, look at the costs. That is the same reason why you cannot compare the price of petrol in Zimbabwe and in Nigeria let alone our neighbours in South Africa. Same applies with comparison with the rates on fibre and 3G let alone ADSL. Businesses do not just wake up in the morning and dream up prices/tariffs but there are structures in place to determine prices. The biggest problem with IT/ICT guys is the blinkers on your heads. Take your eyes off the screen, look at ISP or MNO financials for once. Understand what they are going through, learn terms like costs structure, depreciation, profit/loss before you use words like extortion. If you do that, your so called start-ups might see the light of day. Great article, I like it. Now lets investigate why in the next article.

At Ini, could you explain what has changed the cost structures at Econet for them to reduce tariffs by about 30%? I believe none.Generally and the world over when business do not have competition or adequate regulation they want to profiteer and extort customers. Zimbabwe ISP providers need more players , the same with mobile companies. PERIOD. I wonder why the government is so stingy with the licencing?

you do not purchase base stations everyday. Those are one of purchases or maybe ten year capex. (dont quote me on the years) so over time the basestation is an asset that no longer has certain expenses loan repayments etc.

A cost analysis was done by POTRAZ and all the Mobile operators which showed that they were reaping us and they never complained! Meaning they were reaping us for sure! You can be so emotional whay are they now reducing? What is changing on the costing structure? They are used to Zim$s hence the extortion!

Talk about the fake ZOL Unlimited Broadband. I signed up for the $59 Wimax package after ZOL Sales had told me ” We offer Zimbabwe’s widest broadband coverage. Stream, watch, listen and download without limits. We do traffic shaping during working hours but there is no shaping or restrictions after hours at a speed of up to 1mbps”. 10 days into the month, the link slowed down to a crawl to such an extent that you could not even send a whatsapp message.

I called ZOL support, and got the following response:
“Thank you very much for your call. As per our tele-conversation, your link/account *****, is experiencing slow speeds at the moment because it has exceeded the package’s quota limit of 8GB. Zol has set quotas (monthly, daily, hourly) that enable the even distribution of shared bandwidth to the entire subscriber base by use of a bandwidth management tool. If you are regularly exceeding your agreed Internet usage limit/ set quotas you will be given the opportunity to upgrade your package” The support guy also informed me that the speeds could be throttled to as low as 0kbps and that i should have read and understood the vague Terms and Conditions.

Too bad i had not been informed of such restrictions nor had we “agreed” on any internet usage limits. I guess cheap is expensive.

There is nothing to “understand” coz there is NOWHERE where such terms and conditions are written. Trust me, I’ve looked. And even asked one support guy to email me such documents but he didn’t have them. If you can afford to change, do so because ZOL will not change.

I am paying $70 for unlimited broadband (13 MB/s) plus home phone with unlimited local calls in Australia and Australia is an island thats far from anyone else except New Zealand. Their costs should be higher than Zimbabwe which has sea cables less than 500 km away. The truth is Zimbabwean companies are just reaping off clients because there is no competition or control! Potraz has engineers who know zilch…and these phone and internet companies are just making a killing from clients with little choice.

All these packages offer speeds of “upto” xMbps. Why not replace x with 100Mbps, because even 56kbps will still be an honestly compliant “upto” speed. I know after fighting ZOL for some months, they told me their speed that they advertise is only within their network, as they do not control the internet. So if the throttle you down at their edge router, they can just blame the Internet. And yes, Harare.speedtest.net is inside ZOL’s network, so its customers always get their speeds….until they download from outside the ZOL network. The number of users sharing your bandwidth pipe on shared packages is apparently a trade secret. Why? Unhappiness at the edge router throttling is met with a offer to sell you a dedicated package.

I get a steady 2mps downlink speed with Telkom South Africa’s ADSL for just the equivalent of $37 each month and it is excellent. I can stream and download and have a number of devices using the connection with little lag around the house. I have looked at how much bundled 3g data costs here and in Kenya in comparison to what we get in Zim. We are being robbed, there is not a single service provider that offers great value both monetarily and experientally. The ZOL ADSL packages sound affordable but then the further away you live from the exchange the slower your speed and all the small print apparently. We deserve better!